Microsoft has firmly rejected claims that it is planning to cut as many as 22,000 jobs this month, with chief communications officer Frank Shaw publicly dismissing the reports as entirely untrue.

Recent reports had suggested that Microsoft was gearing up for its first major round of layoffs this year, potentially affecting teams across gaming, Azure, and sales. The claims originated from a post on Blind, an anonymous workplace forum, which alleged that between 5% and 10% of staff could be impacted in the third week of January.

The post argued the cuts would aim to reduce middle management layers and improve the ratio of individual contributors to managers.

As the rumours gained traction online, Shaw responded with a post on X: “100 percent built up / speculative / wrong.”

Earlier, the editor of Windows Central, a site focussed on Microsoft and Windows coverage, had declared the reports were “false on the Xbox side at least,” before Shaw issued his wider denial.